The present invention relates to an information processing device and method, and a recording medium, and particularly to an information processing device and method and a recording medium which are suitably used when communications are carried out in virtual space using avatars.
There exists such a service that plural users can connect their computers to servers through the Internet to co-own a three-dimensional virtual space (hereinafter referred to as “virtual space”). According to such a service, in the virtual space, each user can move an imitation of a user (a character corresponding to an object expressing the user himself/herself) called an avatar. Furthermore, users meeting in the virtual space can chat or communicate with each other. A communication terminal which transmits/receives a message such as a chat or the like enables a user's character having an outlook like a doll, such as an animal or the like, to enter the virtual space as an avatar to have conversations with others.
A technique of enabling users to chat with others by using avatars in virtual space is being applied to various fields. For example, this technique is applied in the educational field such as for communication and interchange between students in schools which are far away from each other.
The types of avatars set in a virtual space are different according to the virtual space (service) that is supplied. That is, avatars differ in shape, such as avatars having animal shapes and human shapes. The avatars are prepared for a virtual space according to the style of services, and a user can select his/her favorite avatar from predetermined avatars.
In general, when persons have a conversation with each other while facing each other, the conversation progresses between the people not only with speech, but also with body gestures, hand gestures, face expressions, etc., as information for communication. Such information is mainly information on expressing feelings. In the real world, there are situations where the speech information, which is based on words, and the information based on feelings, do not coincide with each other. For example, the feeling expression and the language expression do not coincide with each other when a person sets forth his/her rejection with words although he/she looks like they are laughing. Of course, there are many cases where the language expression and the feeling expression do coincide with each other.
Such a case (i.e., case where there is an inconsistency between the feeling expression and the language expression) is used as a method of smoothly progressing communications (i.e., social skill). However, a problem exists where the avatars cannot make such a feeling expression in virtual space. In other words, a user can select his/her favorite avatar as described above, but, the avatars that belong to the same type are not prepared to have different feeling expressions from one another. Therefore, an avatar, which is selected once by a user, always has the same feeling expression irrespective of the content of a chat or communication. Thus, information on feeling expressions that is needed to perform smooth communications between avatars cannot be supplied.